Turn, Serve, And Wait

[MUSIC PLAYING] Where I come into his presence, I humble myself. I lift up both my hands, and I begin to worship him. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. I was at you. Where I come into his presence, I humble myself. I lift up both my hands, and I begin. I begin to worship him. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. I'm in the world of living. Oh, oh, oh, oh. Be a time who's gone for me. You believe me. And you set me free. Be a time who's gone for me. Be a time who's gone for me. Be a time who's gone for me. When I fall into his presence, I humble myself. I lift up both my hands, and I begin to worship him. From the depth of my soul, I begin to worship him. In the end, when I come into his presence, I humble myself. I'm remembering what he's done. He's done for me. He's done for me. He's done for me. ♪ You believe, but it's not just for me ♪ ♪ You believe, and you believe ♪ ♪ I just accept you believe ♪ ♪ Let me go ♪ ♪ Just because ♪

♪ Let me go ♪ ♪ Just because ♪ ♪ You believe ♪ ♪ God ♪ ♪ God ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ You don't know what I'm gonna do ♪ ♪ And then I make it as good ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ And then I make it as good ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ You don't know what I'm gonna do ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ Deep love, or deep love ♪ ♪ Sing, hear and sing and sing and sing ♪ ♪ Sing, hear and sing ♪ ♪ And sing all of us ♪ ♪ Just, sing, all of us ♪ ♪ And sing all of us ♪ ♪ Just, sing, all of us ♪ ♪ Just, sing, all of us ♪ ♪ Just, sing, all of us ♪ ♪ Just, sing, all of us ♪ ♪ Deep love, or deep love ♪ (Applause) (Music) (Music) (Music) (Music)

(Music) (Music) (Music) (Music) (Music) (Music) (Music) (Applause) Hey, the Lord. (Applause) (Applause) Just because he's God. I'm so overwhelmed right now. I'm going to have to take a moment. He saved me. He found me and saved me. And he forgave me. And he planted my feet on a solid rock and established my goings. I'm blessed when I get up. I'm blessed when I go to bed. I'm blessed when I eat. I'm blessed when I just take a walk. We've been blessed with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. (Applause) Did you know a child of God is never not blessed? We walk around with the favor of the Lord on us. He has looked upon us with kindness and mercy. He's been good and gracious.

Look what we've come through. But we're still here. Because what God starts, God will finish. Let's just take a moment. I'm trying to gather myself. I still can't get used to the fact that he saved me. I've been alive a long time now. But it hits me ever so often. He saved me and I'm saved forever. I've got friends who are already dead in the grave that I went to school with. I've got two that are on death row. But I'm standing in a pulpit proclaiming the name of Jesus. Can anybody give a great praise to God today? (Applause) Father, we thank you. And as I've said many times, if there was another word besides thank you, I would use it. I can't think of anything better. So thank you, Jesus. Thank you for the cross. Thank you for the shed blood. Thank you for the empty tomb. Thank you for the out poured spirit. Thank you for the living Word of God. Thank you for the church. Brothers and sisters of like precious faith. Thank you, Jesus.

And thank you for the hope that you could come any moment and take us all to be with you. Open our ears, our eyes, and my mouth that your name might be praised today. And everybody said amen. Smile at somebody on the way down. Could be your neighbor in heaven. I'm in the first Thessalonians, Chapter 1, I'll begin with verse 9. Paul is talking to the Thessalonians about their reputation and he says you've got a good one. For they themselves, talking about people out in the world, declare concerning us what manner of entry we had to you. apostles that you threw the doors wide open and you invited us in. That's being talked about everywhere. And how you turned to God from idols. That's being talked all over Asia Minor, you guys, because you people in Thessalonica were eaten up with idolatry. You had a God for everything and you served those gods. But when you heard the Gospel, the good news of the Lord Jesus Christ, you turned. You turned your back on idolatry and you turned towards the Lord. Let me read that again. How you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God. Let's just be very plain this morning unless one has turned one is not saved. There are way too many people who are involved in religion and church etc but they've never turned. They've never repented until you can say from your heart, I've turned from the old life and I've turned to God and then show it. You're not saved. When a man is born again, when a woman is saved by grace, they don't act the way they used to act and they don't worship the things they used to worship. It's the change called the new birth. You're born again and he says they're talking about it everywhere. How you are now serving the living and true God and to wait for his son from heaven whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come. I'm telling you church, I struggle in this

pulpit. There's so much right here. There's so much meat right here. I can't get to the bottom of it. I'll do the best I can but I noticed Paul kind of gave us a sequence here. He said you turned, you serve and now you're waiting. You turn from the world to God and you are serving God. You are busy in ministry. You know that salvation is more than just belonging to a church on the weekend. So you've decided to work for Christ, labor in the Lord. You get involved in Christian things. Your life revolves around the fellowship of the believers. You are engaged with ministry on this earth. I looked again at those ladies who were going to the mission field for a while. We do this scores of times every year. I don't know how many people we send to the mission field every year. What would make them want to endure the rigors of a long flight and some probably uncomfortable sleeping conditions and the food would be different and the culture they do not know? What makes people who don't have to do that do it? I'll tell you what it is. They turned. One day the Spirit of the Lord ignited life inside of them and they turned and once you turn towards God you can't be idle. You can't just sit back and be an observer. You want to be engaged in ministry and while you are engaged in ministry you're always waiting for the Lord to come back. That's my whole life and it's our life. We turned, we are serving and we're waiting. I'm going to serve your Lord until you come. I don't want anybody to misunderstand me today. Jesus could come while I'm preaching. That was a low response. I'm gonna tell you right now. Thank you very much. We often say it don't we Pastor Greg. We thought the Lord would have come this past week. He didn't but he might come this week. That's the hope of every believer. The trumpet, the shout, leaving this world, meeting the Lord and the clouds to be with him forever. Oh that makes your serving even more fruit Jesus is life. The church is alive serving God amongst the people and in the community does nothing but lay up treasures for you in heaven. It pleases the Lord. Oh, I love people who love to serve, but we are reminded he is coming back. We are waiting for his son from heaven whom he raised from the dead. Jesus who has delivered us from the wrath to come. I just can't, I can't bypass this. If you've been washed in the blood of Jesus,

you will never see an angry God. When the clouds split for his second coming and he has on his game face, when it's time for vengeance against a lost dying world, you will have never and will never see that face. The face you will see for eternity is a beaming face of love and compassion towards you. It's this old world that's going to see that angry face of God. And we're waiting for these events. I just read to some of the council members that the UK and Australia and another nation has just decided there should be a Palestinian state. The headline said they break with the United States on this. Oh, it's coming down. Yes, sir, somebody asked me the other day, does this situation in Russia with Ukraine have anything to do with the coming of the Lord? And I said, wait a minute, everything has everything to do with the Lord's coming back. Nothing's happening over here in an isolated place that God's not in charge of. Everything is sorry if you're visiting, I yell, but I promise you I won't hurt you. Everything going on in this world is moving towards one point, the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are living in the grandest day ever. We could very well see him as he stands in the clouds and says, come home my bride. I am a happy guy this morning. I'm trying to get started, but I'm just a happy guy. It wasn't money that made me happy. It wasn't that house I live in that made me happy. It wasn't even that wife I love that made me this kind of happy. Oh, she makes me happy, but I'm talking about a happiness and a joy that cannot be measured on this earth. Joy, unspeakable, full of glory. That's what we walk in. That's what he gave us, what he saved us. Alleluia. So he said, you turned, you're serving, and you're waiting. Just waiting. Every day of my life, I get up to serve the Lord. I'm waiting. And you know, sometimes waiting is tough. I don't even think I'm an impatient person, but this waiting thing, how you wait in the doctor's office, just wait. And you hope the next time they crack the door, they'll say, come in, Mr. whatever your name, my name, Livingston, just waiting. That's what we're doing. But while we're waiting, we are busily engaged in that which brings fulfillment to the kingdom of God. There's another thing about waiting. You can get bored. You can just get bored. There've been times in my life, our life and my ministry that I just said, it seemed like I'd do the same old thing every day. Here comes Sunday, for each, go home, get on the sofa, give the dog a kiss, and others. Wake up, have dinner with the family, Monday's coming, wrong, wrong, wrong, just waiting, mundaneness, emptiness. I'm sure at times you get kind of weary with

the same thing all the time. Joshua was commanded by God and Moses to take the city of Jericho, the way in which that was done, let me just go over it for you, he said go take the city, he said I want you to take your fighting men, fighting men, which was hundreds of thousands, I want you to step across that Jordan and for seven days I want you to walk in a circle and do nothing, not to me that's boring, that's mundane and Joshua got his troops together and said fellas, book up it's time to go, what are we doing commander, we're going to cross this little Jordan and then we're going to walk around Jericho one time tomorrow, you cannot talk, you don't respond, the enemy is going to be up on the walls throwing stuff at you, rocks, hurling insults, blaspheming your God, throwing their trash all over you, somebody even take an arrow and try to kill you, that's going to happen, but you just be quiet and you keep marching and when we finish the first march we come back to camp and we do it again tomorrow and they said the same thing, yes, he said might as well let you in on it, we're going to do this for six days in a row, six days in a row, we're just going to cross the Jordan and we're going to walk in a circle and say nothing while the enemy is making fun of us, after you've done it six days I'm coming back early the seventh day to tell you to get ready because today we're going to march around Jericho seven times, I don't believe for a moment all those Israelites were happy, I can hear him talking now, we've already done this six days, how about you, six days and now we're going to do it seven days, it's hot out there and those people are throwing stuff at us, Joshua said mount up, let's go, they circle once, they circle twice, three, four, five, six and on the seventh time they still haven't spoken but God had given an instruction when the seventh time is complete we want the priests to blast the shofar and we want all of you to start shouting glory to God and as mundane as it seems and as boring as it seems, something's happening, God is working, there's always ministry in the mundane, everything about life is not happy and sparkly, most of this thing we do call Christianity is walking by faith around and around and doing it over and over again it seems just because God said do it but because they were obedient, the seventh time the trumpets blew and the walls fell down and they went in and took everything they had and destroyed Jericho, folks God knows what he's doing, I wouldn't have done it that way, neither would you have done it that way, Lord there's

got to be a more productive way, a more exciting way, God says I'm not in it for excitement, I'm in it to see if you'll obey me and if you'll obey me I will show you great things that you've never even imagined, they saw a city crumble, walls fell down just because they did what God said, the same thing applies to you and me today, it seems like our lives are just boring, it seems like we get up and do the same thing all the time but God sees faith when you keep on doing what's right, when there's no feeling, you're numb, you don't see any sense in it, you don't even believe that anything is going to happen but you do it anyway, you do it anyway, can anybody hear me? So it seems to me that God is always taking me somewhere I don't want to go and telling me to do something I don't want to do, God loves his people so much that he takes them to strange places and dangerous places and then he tells his people, serve me, work for me, praise me. You're in the most boring part of life right now, nothing is happening, everything stays the same, but you have forgotten that God is with you and that God is training you. There's something about modern day Christianity. We're more into deliverance than we are development. God get me out of this. How did I get into this? Get me out of this. Lord, deliver me from this. In fact, a couple of weeks ago I preached on anxiety, remember? And we had prayer for people who were having anxiety attacks and I don't know that I've ever gotten more response, email, text or anything else than that message on anxiety. And you would think that after that the testimonies would roll in. I got delivered that day. I got delivered that day. They didn't. Somebody asked me, "Are you still having those anxious moments? Are you still dealing with anxiety?" Yes.

I dealt with it this morning, early this morning. I thought it was going to suffocate. I thought it was hopeless. Yeah, I did it this morning, but fast forward. I'm standing up here telling you, "God may not deliver you, but he will sustain you." I asked some good preaching, Paul said, "I asked God three times to take whatever this thorn is away from me so I could serve him better." And God said, "Nope, my grace is sufficient for when you are weak, you are strong. And my strength is shown best in your weakness." And Paul then said, "I'm done with that request, I'll just say this. When I am weak, I am strong. I would rather be this way and have the power of God on me than to be delivered from it and start depending on myself." Who hears me this morning? I grew up in the Pentecostal Church and they were always in revivals. They always had deliverance tonight. I'm going to deliver people tonight, headaches, demons, bad attitudes, deliverance, deliverance. I've been through hundreds of them and never got delivered. I think maybe our emphasis was on the wrong thing instead of having a deliverance service, we should call it a development service. God loves you so much, he's put you right here in this place for such a time as this. He's going to see you through. He's going to make you strong. In fact, that's what I read in this passage when Jacob was told by God to go down into Egypt and Jacob did not want to go. Go, go where I tell you, do not be afraid to go down to Egypt. We have to admit sometimes we don't want any more tests. We would wish God would kind of leave us alone. I don't want to mention in glory we say, "I want a cabin in the corner of glory land." So when the Lord spoke to Jacob, He said, "You go down and don't you be afraid.

For down there, I will make you great. I'm going to take you to a place you don't want to go. But it's in that place that I will make greatness come out of you." That's a message right there. We avoid going down. We don't want the emotion. We don't want the Lord to strip us bare. We want to do our own thing. But God said, "Jacob, I'm going down with you. I'm taking you down. You won't be alone. And while you're down there, I'm going to make you great. I'm going to multiply your family. And the place you despise, I'm going to do my greatest work in your life." Oh my church, did you hear what I'm doing? Does anybody hear what I'm trying to tell you this morning? [BLANK_AUDIO] God never leaves you down. He always brings you up. He'll take you down so you'll get on your knees. Then He'll bring you up." Here's the thing about God. He knows us. And I know, I know about me. If I didn't have trouble in my life from time to time, I would be complacent. But you know, we found out, even in our own family, when it's hopeless, seemingly. You've done all you know to do, and it's still as bad as it can get. I don't want this. I don't like this. I didn't ask for this.

Why am I here, Lord? Because God is making us great in this bad place. Can I get an amen from the balcony or something? And God will gradually bring you right back up. He will be glorified in this. This is your life that He's perfecting. He is taking you out of you and filling you with more of Him. So I say to all of you, we might as well get ready for more trials because the more we are tried, the more we are like Jesus. It's a tough way to go. The more He tests me, the more I find out His strength inside of me. I don't have that kind of strength. Only God can give that kind of grace and mercy. So I just want you to understand it even happened to Jesus when Jesus came up out of the River Jordan after having been baptized. The Bible says the Spirit immediately drove Him into the wilderness. Why Jesus? He's the Son of God because Jesus did not know manhood. He did not know flesh. He was spirit and bright and glorious, but He came and put on one of these bodies. And Jesus learned obedience by the things He suffered. If it had to happen to Jesus, it must happen to you and me. So ever so often people will lose their job. They'll get bad reports from doctors. You know all of that negative stuff that hits us in life. And we feel that God has forsaken us, or did I do something wrong? I wish we could get away from that. Did I do something wrong? I told the early service this morning, sorry. We our whole life, our whole life comes from the stance of victory.

We are not trying to get victory. We already have victory. That's so good I want to say it again. If you've been washed in the blood, if the Spirit of God takes control of your life, if you're living in this Word, if you're living by faith, you already have victory. Now thanks be to God who has given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. What does victory feel like? Because I don't even know, I just have to go to the book and read it. We are victorious. We are more than conquerors. And that's when our whole world is crashing in. That's when we have been told to go down to a place we don't want to go. And do something we don't want to do. But God is with us. And He said, "If you go down, I will go with you. And when you come up, I will come up with you because you can't get away from God. If you go higher than the heavens, you'll find Him there. If you make your bed in hell, there He is. I don't care where you go or what you go through. God said, "I will never leave you. I will never forsake you. I will be with you always, even to the end of the age." And hallelujah, I turned over to 1 Kings 19. This was a jewel that changed my life several years ago. Elijah has just called fire down from heaven. On all of these false prophets, worshipers of Baal, he has called fire down from heaven. God has shown himself, proven himself. And now hundreds of those. created a cancer in our nation, kill them. Now let me tell you from experience, when you have a super-duper high in the spirit, it doesn't last very long. Elijah had one, boy did he have one.

He's sitting there arrogantly saying, "Where's your God? Where's your God?" Maybe he went to the restroom. Elijah said, "Ah, you guys have been doing this all morning, all day. Where's your God?" He said, "It's my turn." And he prayed 63 words and fire fell from heaven and licked up the water and the dirt and the sacrifice and God essentially said, "I'm here, Elijah." And Elijah was bloated with confidence, but it wears off. Somebody came up while he was stretching his neck, said, "We just heard that Jezebel is after you and she swears she's going to have you dead by this time tomorrow." And the old boy that called down fire from heaven took off. I mean he took off and he went deep into the wilderness and climbed up in a mountain and he had in a cave. And while he was in that cave, the Lord spoke to him, "Here it is right here." Elijah, what are you doing here? There it is. What are you doing here? At first glance, it looks like the Lord is saying, "How did you get up here? How did you get up in here?" No. He was saying, "Now that you are here, what are you doing?" Does that make sense? He's not asking him the road he took to get here. He's saying, "Now that you are here, what are you doing about it? How are you living?" He was saying, "Where's your praise? Now that you're here, where is your praise?" I think one of the mightiest things that can ever happen on this earth is when somebody feels depleted and defeated and they want to run and hide and yet they can lift a hand and say, "I bless you, Jesus." You don't know how much strength you have, but have you ever noticed sometimes when you didn't think you could, you praised him. You didn't know where it came from, but you praised him. That's why God takes you to places you don't want to go and tells you to do things you don't want to do because when you do them, you realize it was God at work inside of you. And you began to say, "In your weakness, thank you, God. I bless you, God. You are my life. You order my steps." If there's a child of God in here wondering, "Am I in God's will?" I can't answer all those questions, but let me tell you something. God leads his people. He sustains his people. If you're thinking that God's will is where you want to buy a house next or live next or any of these worldly or temporal things, that's not what God has in mind. God wants you to see his hand in your life and God wants you to see how he's ordering your steps. God will sometimes take you and let you rest beside the still waters. Other times he'll just gently nudge you up and take you to the driest, darkest, emptiest place you've ever been in your life, just to prove to you that he is God, that he does not forsake people when they are weary or discouraged. It feels like God abandons us at times. When you're shedding tears, you're thinking,

"Where's God right here? What happened to all of that?" But God wants you to know. You are not by yourself in this battle. Satan cannot touch you in this battle. You are already a conqueror in this battle. Hallelujah. It feels like you're running for your life. you. And that's why God lets tough times come. Let me repeat this. If I didn't have trouble in my life, I know me well enough to know that I'd get lax and complacent. Have you ever noticed in your own life when things seem to be going well? You're not necessarily groaning before God. The prayer closet is not really on the schedule for today, and you can get by with a little tiny little morning devotional and then you go out and have fun. But God knows that doesn't last very long. So He will allow adversaries. Oh, I was talking about this yesterday, Paul said in Corinthians, "A great big open door has been placed in front of me, but there are many adversaries." That's what He said. Paul said, "This could be the biggest moment of my life, but more devils are everywhere. They're going to try their best to steal my joy, to steal my reward." And that's why God allows tough times to come. So we find ourselves on our knees. We find ourselves digging into this book, and suddenly strength appears, strength, spiritual strength. I'm going to tell this story because we have a lot of new people, I assume. It moved me. It impacted me one time. It made me understand what serving the Lord was all about. I heard a story about some fishermen, a group of five men, they all had big fishing boats on the coast of North Carolina. One old guy didn't pay much attention to the other.

He just sailed out, caught his fish, filled up the well, and came on back. Others couldn't find much to fish for when they did. They came back, and they always noticed that at this particular dock where this guy was, where he brought his fish, people were lined up to buy his fish, restaurant owners, chefs, and just people who wanted fish for dinner, lined up for him to sell him his fish. All the other guys were saying, "What's this guy got that we don't have? I don't get this." But the guy died, and his daughter took over the business. And when one of those fellas came over one day and said, "Look, your dad never would give us the secret. Do you mind if we ask what makes people want your fish more than ours?" She said, "Sure, I don't care. Come up here, I'll show you." Dad taught me this, and she opened up the huge well where all the fish were poured when they were caught, and they said, "Well, wait a minute. These fish are alive." She said, "That's right. Your fish are dead." That's why they want our fish. "Well, why are your fish still alive?" 'Cause my daddy learned that if you put a catfish in here, a catfish is territorial, and he will fight and push and aggravate the other fish, and those fish think they're going to die, so they just keep swimming, and they swim until they get to the shore, and by the time he pulls them out, they're still flopping, and that's fresh fish. You know what that taught me? Sometimes God will send a catfish into your life. Because when the catfish from hell comes, I find myself on my knees. I feel refreshed in the Spirit. When the catfish comes, I think I'm going to die. He's wearing me out.

And God sees it as a refreshing. So when it's my time to come out, I'm still flopping. I'm still alive. Can I just tell you something today? Most of you are still flopping. You've had enough hell in your life in the last few months and weeks. You've had some things that don't make sense in your life. Where did it come from? So you go and you kneel and you pray in your study, which is what God wanted all along. I'm telling you today, don't curse the catfish. of these days that you didn't just fall over limp and die, no God kept you alive, God kept you filled, God kept you in His will. So ever so often we have to stop and say thank you Jesus. I will bless the Lord at all times, all times His praise shall continually be in my mouth. Then with me please, none of that is theological, but it made sense didn't it? Yeah, Father I thank you today from my heart I thank you for pulling back the curtains and letting us see how you love us enough to let us be chased at times and taunted at times, weakened at times, but every time you raise us up and we are stronger than we've ever been before. I praise you today Lord for this great salvation. I praise you Lord for your keeping power. I praise you Lord that it pays to turn, serve and wait. One of these days very soon none of this is going to matter, but we will see you face to face and I bless you for that today. Can I get you church just to lift your hands and thank Him? You got to thank Him for where you are right now. Didn't ask for it, didn't even know I needed it, but I'm here right now and I'm blessing the Lord in the midst of this right now. We praise you Lord, we glorify you Lord, before we were even conceived in our mother's womb you had a plan for our life, you had a road laid out before us.

When we were young and didn't even know our spiritual condition, you had already sent angels to guide us to the place called Calvary's Cross. Thank you for the cross, thank you for the empty tomb, I say it again and thank you for what you're doing in our lives. The whole church, say amen, sing pray, praise to the Lord, praise to the Lord, praise to the Lord, praise to the Lord, praise to the Lord, praise to the Lord, praise to the Lord, sing it again church, praise to the Lord, praise to the Lord, praise to the Lord. And now, let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, my redeemer, amen. We pray that today as you watch Pastor Livingston's message, you will be encouraged and ready to dig deeper into a life with Jesus. To help you on this journey, Central has two resources for you. First, you can sign up to receive Central's jail and prison correspondence course through the mail by writing to Central Church, Jail and Prison Ministries' Discipleship Center, 5143 Sardis Road, Charlotte, North Carolina, 28270. Thank you for watching. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING]